


If You Were Here

by Blownwish



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, M/M, Yaoi, royed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-10-01 05:08:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10181366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blownwish/pseuds/Blownwish
Summary: Edward Elric and Roy Mustang: exlovers who never stopped loving each other despite the demands of family, duty to country, and the passing of time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Fan ethics demand I tag EdWin and RoyAi. Ed marries Winry, though there are no actual EdWin scenes. RoyAi is not here for romance, per se, though the characters do make an attempt. 
> 
> About Riza... I wanted to do more with the singularly magnificent Riza Hawkeye than make her a consolation prize or wife her. She's a miracle unto herself, and I hope you agree.

“Touch me.” 

If Roy Mustang gave one damn about his aspirations, he shouldn't have planned a tryst with his fifteen year old subordinate. Other officers could compartmentalize their peccadillos and move on, but none of them had a peccadillo who defined noncompliance as beautifully as Fullmetal. 

It was a mistake to bring him to his aunt's Inn and expect straightforward sex from the boy. Yes, Fullmetal _seemed_ to be working with the agenda - which the kid came up with all by himself, thank you - when he kicked the door shut, backed Roy up against the wall and unzipped his fly. Fullmetal knew they were there to diffuse tension, then pack the combustible elements into a convenient little box they could take out when needed and walk away from, intact. But Roy was picking up on something else in the kid’s eyes. Something _emotional_.

“Come on, stupid bastard.” Fullmetal pushed Roy's hand against his crotch and ground against it. “God damn, try not to be useless for once!”

Roy could manage that, certainly. He pushed the boy back just enough to unzip those ridiculously tight pair leather pants and yank them to his knees. “You asked for it.” Fullmetal cursed as Roy returned good measure, spinning and slamming him up against the wall, gasped when Roy grabbed him, right there, and showed him how fucking useless he _wasn't_. “More to your liking, Major?” 

This was supposed to make things easier. Obviously they had a certain attraction to each other, but that was all it was, a simple matter of managing chemical reactions for specific outcomes. They did it every day and sex should have been no different. 

“Fuck!” The kid grabbed his uniform shirt. “Don't stop, damn it!” Roy froze when that automail hand fisted his hair. “I said, don't stop!” Then all those compartmentalized boxes and chemical management plans exploded in Roy's face as Fullmetal pushed his tongue into his mouth. 

It was wet, artless, sloppy, and incredible: Fullmetal practically devoured him, and his hands cupped Roy's face, as if he was actually precious. Someone moaned when they broke apart, panting. 

“Why'd you stop?”

Roy combed Fullmetal’s hair back and drowned in his eyes. “You distracted me-” with feelings.

“God, you're so stupid.” He placed Roy's hand on his crotch, again. “Concentrate this time, okay?”

Roy decided to avoid eye contact (and absolutely ban kissing) for the time being. “I'll manage something.” He went to his knees, licked his lips and bent his head. 

_“Oh, shit…”_

It had been a while since Roy had sucked a man off, but he never felt shaking hands caress his cheeks while he did it, nor did the previous recipient gasp or _whine_. 

“Oh, please please please…” 

God, that pleading voice was just as bad as his expressions! Then the boy’s hips pushed forward and his hands were in his hair, fisting and pulling as he pumped and pumped and… _fuck!_ Fullmetal was positively wailing as he came; shot after shot pulsed through him as Roy struggled to swallow it all. He did, somehow. 

“C-c-colonel?” His knees were shaking. Roy touched the cold automail. “Shit, I -” He slid, back against the wall, pants still at his ankles, beautifully flushed, beautifully trembling. “God, Colonel...” 

It was a mistake to look in his eyes, because Roy could see a world where only he and Fullmetal existed. An automail hand touched his cheek. He leaned forward, toward absolute disaster and let the boy kiss him, again. 

++

“Five hundred and twenty.” Edward dropped a small velvet coin purse with a dramatic _plop_. (Could he do anything without drama?) “Now you.”

Roy Mustang, now _Führer_ Roy Mustang, took out the notes and placed them next to the purse. “Six thousand.” He refused react when Edward snorted at the overage. Roy was lucky he had time to get to this little tea house, let alone find a subordinate who had enough time for a bank run. It was hard for anyone (who wasn't Colonel Hawkeye) to appreciate how running a nation ate up nearly each and every minute of one's life. “Your train fare.” He explained in the most neutral tone he could muster. 

Edward took the notes and dropped a thousand cenz note on the table. “Your tab.” His tone was just as neutral. 

He was wearing a wedding ring. 

Roy did the unthinkable, and actually looked him in the eye. God, he was such a damn masochist: Edward was a revelation. The boy had become a man, a beautiful, golden Adonis of a man. _And married_. “A thousand dollar cup of tea. Sadly enough, that's a good price.”

“Welcome to the new economy. Maybe you could, I dunno, even do something about it. Call me crazy.” Edward looked away, too late. Roy saw that downward pull at the corner of his mouth, and the flush. There was a familiar, nervous energy in those restless hands before he shoved them in his pants pockets. They hadn't been lovers for years, but that electric current had never gone away. Nothing, no abrupt words, no deafening silences, not even time stretching on and on and on had tamped that down. Hell, Roy still woke up hard and aching from dreams so vivid he swore he could taste Edward. Those dreams were as close to having a lover as Roy had gotten since he left, long ago.

“Winry’s having a baby this summer.”

Pain was a familiar. He had felt it so many times it was almost a friend. He smiled as it said _hello_ and kissed his forehead with a mallet, while Roy imagined his Fullmetal naked, impregnating the damn Rockbell girl. “That's wonderful news, Edward. I'm happy for you.”

The smile was distant. “Yeah.” 

“You seem happy.”

Edward nodded. “Real happy.” He turned too quickly, nearly stumbling, though he caught himself against an empty table. Roy was left to sit in the empty tea shop, staring at ever-so-breakable porcelain. 

++

Roy figured a few things out about Fullmetal, and one thing about himself. The kid could laugh during sex, adored chocolates, and had been crushing on him since he was in that wheelchair, years ago. 

The laughter was a discovery made in the same vein all great discoveries were made: accidentally. Roy'd brushed his cuff over Fullmetal's ribs. He noted the flinch, an intake of breath and a slight dilation of his pupils. When he repeated the process he got the same results. Confirmation was as simple as a tackle, tumble on the mattress and an old fashioned ambush on the ribs. Elation! Fullmetal curled and arched and wailed and laughed so hard he cried. 

Fullmetal also seemed to like bad jokes - not in the sense that he would laugh, but that desperate, near love-struck expression was no match for Roy's patented puns. 

"You've got great potential energy, Fullmetal. Care to convert it to kinetic with me?"

"Oh my god, stop."

"If we do it on the table, would that be periodic sex?"

"Seriously!" His grin gave him away - he liked it! "Come here, you fucking dork." He was still grinning when he pulled Roy down and shut him up with a kiss. 

Chocolates were a shot in the dark. He knew the kid had a sweet tooth; he took had a little coffee with his sugar and kept a pocket full of hard candies at all times. The glucose gave an edge to his thinking and fighting (and temper), and Roy's suspected his dependence on it made him a junkie. This was not as surprising as the tickling, but certainly gratifying when the boy would not only sit on his lap so Roy could hand feed him, but also lick Roy's fingers clean. 

"Fuck, those were great." He went right back to licking away the last smear. "Almost makes up for four years of your bullshit." He kept Roy’s finger between his teeth when he smiled. 

"So charming." Roy smacked his ass. 

He flipped Roy off. "Eat me."

"Well, then..."

Roy would have stopped these little rendezvous if this levity wasn't established. Thank god, or whatever passed for a god, that he had. Being able to fuck the boy gave him the kind of relief a thousand women couldn't give him and he didn't want any inconvenient intensity to ruin it. He once warned Hughes that falling for someone during war was as good as putting a target on your back. He sure as hell wasn't going to put one on his back, or Fullmetal's. Feelings would muddle priorities and kill them both. 

Roy was laying on another mattress, sweating and reeling after giving Fullmetal two - two! - orgasms in half an hour of playing _let's see how many fingers can I fit inside you_. He was achingly beautiful, shivering and cursing as he came, chanting _Colonel, Colonel, Colonel._ Roy had to compartmentalize it in terms of biochemistry, psychological release, adolescent hormones… anything, really. 

Fullmetal poked his naked thigh. "You gonna be okay?" He was already off the bed, buttoning up his shirt. 

"This is fun, right, Fullmetal?"

He was the type to put both pant legs on at once, jumping right in. "This is about my age, isn't it? Quit making a big deal out of that bullshit. Pretending adolescents are sexually dormant is a fucked up social construct."

Not that, again. Roy rolled to the other side, groaning. "No."

"So, whatever you're beating yourself up over is something bigger than fucking your fifteen year old subordinate, and I'm supposed to know what the hell it is because I read minds. Wow, be more vague."

Roy slipped his briefs on, slowly, as his back demanded. "Don't fall in love with me, okay?"

How he got there without Roy noticing, he didn't know. Muddled senses, probably. “Is that an order, Colonel?” He pulled his head down and kissed him, oh-so gently. “You know better than that."

 

That night, after finding the bottom of his cheapest whiskey bottle, Roy realized the kid was confused. He'd enlisted because Roy dashed into his life, pulled him up from that wheelchair and promised him the moon. He practically seduced the poor kid with a sloppy happily ever after. 

The morning after, he studied the bloodshot mess in the mirror and realized he was looking at a man with a target in his back. 

++

"Someone has been hiring alchemists to transmute gold under Grumman’s regime." Führer Mustang slammed his desk before Representative Weimar could finish. “I don't need you to give me names because any rich, large debtor on the government books is a good enough suspect for me."

"Fürher, I don't see why you asked me here."

"To send your friends a message: I will adjust their debts for inflation and expect them to pay their bills." He stood up and turned his back. 

"Why take such a rash tone, Fürher? You are not a child, surely you understand how the world works.”

God, this rolly-polly of a man had brought Roy's tension headache back. He licked his lips constantly, probably imagining the kickback certain friends in high places would pay out if he managed to manipulate Fürher Mustang the same way they manipulated his predecessor. “Amestrian industry has been exploiting the people through legal and illegal means. Suppressed wages, labor exploitation, _near-worthless money_... My god, how do you sleep knowing you're bought and paid for by those bastards?” Roy felt sick just thinking about it. “It ends now, Weimar. Tell them I said so - _and get the hell out of here_.” The double doors clicked like gunshots. He winced. 

"That was certainly to the point, sir." Hawkeyes pushed a glass of water and two aspirin tablets in his hands. 

King Bradley never lost his cool with those parliament scumbags. And yet there he was, the same man who swore he could do so much better, frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog. "I have no idea where I've put my subtlety and charm. Maybe they slipped out of my pocket this morning." He chewed the tablets and put down the water, untouched. “Your bad influence.”

"He's right, in a way." Hawkeye stood next to him, observing the hanging of the guard on the grounds below while he stared at nothing. "Being self righteous is childish."

“Amesteel hired two hundred excons to work striking employees with metal pipes. Meanwhile they owe the government more money than half the population earns in a year. There is only one way to speak to a man in their pockets."

"Yes - effectively. It's about results, not moral indignation. The people who've been hurt are the ones who should express it, not you."

He slid a wry look her way. “Careful, now you're sounding like the old me." 

She still stared ahead. "You have several indictments on your desk. We found the names of certain alchemists suspected of transmuting gold."

Was it the aspirin or Hawkeye that weakened the vice grip between his eyes? He would've clapped her back if she were Hughes, or groped her if she were Fullmetal. He preferred this distance; it kept her with him. 

"Sometimes I wish you'd put a bullet in my head and take over this damn thing."

"Lose your composure around another politician and I just might."

 

“Did you happen to see my composure, Colonel?”

“In my holster.” That was when she returned his weary look. 

++

Roy heard his love song down the hall, and it was hardly sweet. "Hey! Where's that good for nothing, useless, lazy-ass bastard?" 

"And here he comes in three, two, one." Hawkeye pointed at the door as Fullmetal kicked it open. 

"You..." Fullmetal bounded over the coffee table and leaped on Roy's desk, crouching like a predator, eyeing Roy. 

Roy didn't move an inch. "Better clear my schedule, Lieutenant." But he kept his eyes on Fullmetal. The kid had his undivided attention. 

"Yes, sir." 

Immobile, they glared at each other a few moments after she discretely locked the door behind her, tension crackling as each seemed to size the other up. 

Ed spoke between his teeth. "She's gone."

"Yes. But..." Roy didn't have time to finish. 

Fullmetal was straddling his lap in one fluid movement, arms and legs wrapped around his body, swallowing his words with his wet mouth. "Fuck, it's been _three weeks!_ " He pushed his tongue against Roy's. "I'm losing my mind, here, Mustang." He wiggled his ass." Miss me?" He stopped to smile down at him like sunshine. "Don't answer. I know you missed me." Then he dove in for the kill, fisting Roy's hair while he nearly ate him alive. 

Roy should've pushed him back, or could've reciprocated with his own kisses, but he did neither. The boy felt so good, so right in his arms and all he wanted to do was lose himself in his warmth. It was killing him.

"What?" Fullmetal pressed their foreheads together. 

Roy frowned. "I'm in the office."

"So? I'm in adolescence. It's not like we never did it in here before." Yes, and that was the part of the problem. Roy already had to parlay a few offhand jokes about certain long, closed door meetings. _Oh, you and your boy were_ hard _at work, again_. They weren't all that serious, but they were on the damn nose. Elric had power over Roy no woman ever held. This thing had become the opposite of what they'd intended: uncontrollable. 

Fullmetal angled his mouth dangerously close for another kiss and whispered. "Please? Pretty fucking please with lots of come on top? I promise to be a good and keep real quiet."

Roy groaned in absolute agony. He needed to manage this, somehow. "Tonight. The Inn. It's discrete."

"Here. And tonight." He managed to unzip Roy's fly and palm him. "Come on!" He even pulled that dirty bounce on his lap! "Just a little handjob? Lemme..." Oh, dear god! The boy was getting far too adept. Roy's cock was rock hard. 

"Please just don't." He got up, zipped his fly (despite rigorous bodily protest), combed his hair back and focused on the footprint Fullmetal left on an inter-office staff memo regarding fraternization. Oh, irony. "Don't take it the wrong way, Fullmetal."

"Not at all." Fullmetal did not turn around. "You're right, the whole fucking thing is too risky. I should be seen meeting you at that sleazy hotel, or going to your apartment. That's not suspicious at all." 

Life was a series of calculated risks. There were only so many one could take without failure, and there were only so many failures one could endure. The footprint was muddy; perhaps a simple transmutation would take it out without ruining the ink, though it wouldn't hurt to try. As far as the memo was concerned, it was not so much about fraternization, the brass usually looked the other way, but sending a message: Roy was being watched. 

"Are you even listening to me?" 

"They suspect. They might even know." He wanted to offer some sort of mea culpa, but tamped that self indulgence back. Blame and responsibility could be sorted later, they needed resolution now. "Fullmetal?"

He shook the braid out of his hair and grinned that delicious, evil grin as he pulled off the black shirt. "Worried, Colonel?" The pants came down, just a little, _just enough_. He licked his thumb and swabbed it over his cock once, twice, and three times, bringing it to full attention. "I'm the one breaking the rules, not you. Why don't you just sit that ass back down and let me get in trouble." 

Roy was magically back in his chair, straddled by a force of nature who unzipped, unbuttoned and undid him with quick hands. Fullmetal pressed their cocks together and worked them both, pumping as he thrust against Roy, hard. 

"This isn't about stupid military rules."

This was a departure from the lighthearted direction Roy usually directed. No, Fullmetal was in charge, making him feel raw and exposed. Roy shook his head. 

"Tell me why." He squeezed. They moaned. Roy nearly came right there. "Tell me why you said you can't when you fucking _can_."

"Because..." Roy was caught between that word and those rich, golden eyes. The boy could see right through him and he knew - he knew! - Roy's secret. He could pretend this was about the brass all he wanted, but in the end they both knew it was about _this_. Damn it! The boy was forcing the truth out of him. Roy couldn't deny it. Wouldn't deny the consuming, ferocious emotions that scared the fuck out of him, anymore. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

"What wasn't? Say it!" Fullmetal pressed his forehead against his and seethed. "Don't you dare punk out on me, you fucking bastard! Tell me!"

_"I love you, damn it!"_

Fullmetal swooped in, and his kiss was... Oh, god. Roy would've yelled down all of fucking HQ if he didn't muffle his mouth as he came. And he kept kissing him, even after it was over, whimpering like a puppy when Roy returned those kisses, one after another after another. Tongues slid against each other, bodies pressed and breath mingled. "Don't you dare-" nip -"punk out-" lick -"on me, again."

Roy shuddered when he finally got off of him. His arms fell to his sides and he closed his eyes. "This is bad. Very, very bad."

"Oh, and I love you, too."

Roy moaned. "You're going to regret making this into something more."

He laughed, and it killed Roy because it was just the kind of thing a kid would do when they didn't understand the danger. "So what? Even if you're right, it's not going to be the first, or the worst regret I ever had."

He began wiping himself off. "I suppose not."

"We good for tonight?"

Roy shrugged. "The usual place?"

Fullmetal was ridiculously cute, biting his hair tie as he plated his braid. Even cuter when he spoke through gritted teeth: "Bring lots of chocolate."

Roy saluted with all the sarcasm he could muster, then commenced to buttoning himself back into some kind of order.

"Quit being such a drama queen." The quick kiss on his cheek was cool, soft, and sweet. So was the pat on that same spot. "It's not like I wanna marry you, stupid."

++

It was over. The Parliament elected Weimar as Prime Minister one day after Fürher Mustang signed his last executive order to nullify domestic executive power. He was now simply Amestris' defender, no longer her dictator. Now all he had to do was figure out how to save his country from herself with one hand legally tied behind his back. 

Hawkeye stood with him as the remnants of Parliament rolled out of their chamber like fat, blood bloated ticks, counting heads and making assessments. "Colonel Breda's report came in this morning. Five industrialists managed to buy the entire house."

If that report was in his hands last week, the Progressive Caucus would have swept the elections. Roy closed his eyes, grateful his lieutenant colonel had him on an aspirin regimen. "The bastards won." There was nothing he could do about it. 

"Sir." She cleared her throat and nodded toward the double doors to their left. "Looks like we're being paid a visit from an old friend."

Roy didn't have friends. He had commrades, he had ghosts, but not friends. She knew this, like she knew his middle name. But Hawkeye's phrasing was, by definition, deliberate. Her brow arched. "This is the part where you turn around and say hello." 

"Still making yourself useless, huh?"

That voice. _Edward_.

Roy wanted to ask her if this was a dream. He'd had so many like this. He would turn around and suddenly the boy he knew would push him into one his aunt's shabby rooms. Their clothes would disappear and Roy would come alive again as he stared into those golden eyes.

"Nice to see you, Edward." She smiled over Roy's shoulder. "Give my regards to Winry?"

"I will."

The voice was right behind him, now. Roy watched Hawkeye leave through the glass plated interior doors, wondering what to say to the man he'd made love to a thousand times in his dreams. _Thank you for coming to the political defeat of a pathetic fool who ever stopped loving you?_

"You gonna make me talk to your back?" 

"I suppose you came to pay your debt." He turned his head.

"Yeah. Pretty sure I didn't expect to be pissed about it, though."

He finally faced him, finding a golden, bearded man with the smile he dreamt of for years. He almost called him _Fullmetal_ at the sight of it. "The voters make the decision, not me. Unfortunately they decided against their own interests."

Edward held out his bank notes. "What happened to the bastard with vision?"

"He's still here, mired in paperwork." It was funny when he thought it up, it just didn't sound funny out loud. It sounded... pathetic. "Edward-"

"Mustang-"

They spoke at once, stopped at the same time. Took deep breaths and waited for the other one to say something, anything. 

"Take it." He shook the money at him. "You did what you promised. So I'm doing what I promised." If only everyone was this true. 

Their fingers touched; it felt more intimate than a simple brush. Quickly, he pocketed the money away. "Will I be seeing you again?" God, he sounded so weak. 

For a moment Edward's hand remained extended. Roy suddenly felt lighter, freer, as he saw an unspeakable question. But then it dropped, and Roy understood why. Edward was still wearing his wedding band. Even if he didn't drop it, Roy wouldn't have taken his hand. 

He pulled the visor on his cap over his eyes as Edward turned and walked away. “Goodbye, Sunshine.”

++

"Make sure you work up a good lather." Roy stirred shaving cream in Fullmetal's bright red shaving mug (he'd never lose it) as Ed stood next to him with a hot towel wrapped around his face and neck. "See?" Fullmetal nodded at the foam Roy presented to him. "Now, for the towel." 

He'd let Fullmetal sharpen the blade on his strap. The kid was more than capable, after all. But this part? He didn't want Fullmetal needlessly hurting himself. Besides, shaving was a manly art and he needed another man to show him how to do it, properly. 

Fullmetal was cooperative, watching their reflection in the corner of his eye as he tilted his chin, as per Roy's request, so the cream could be brushed evenly over his face. 

"Broad, even strokes. Always strike against the direction of beard growth or your skin won't be smooth." He shaved his entire face, carefully, even though Fullmetal only had a couple of patches. "No need to rush. My worst nicks always happened when I didn't take my time."

He wiped off the remnants and offered him some of his own aftershave, though he fully expected Fullmetal would prefer his own. But the kid, true to form, was full of surprises. Use yours. What's it called. I wanna buy some form myself."

"Lucky Tiger."

He gently clapped it on Fullmetal's face and smiled. "There. How's that?" One metal and one flesh hand kept his hands in place as his Sunshine pecked a kiss on his lips. 

"Good."

"Now, you." Roy wetted a fresh towel with steaming hot water. "Show me what you learned, and don't you dare ruin this gorgeous face." Then he wrapped it around his own face and neck. 

"Obnoxious ass."

"Quit stalling." 

"Colonel?” His tone softened. "Hey, the other day when you said I'd regret making this more than just blowing off steam..." He took out Roy's razor. "It's because of our responsibilities, I know. I've got to get Al's body back and you've got your ambition and everything. I get it. But don't you think we're stronger if we've got each other's backs?"

"People say, 'I love you,' with an eye to the future. A life together." He didn't want to have this conversation. "You know I can't offer that to anyone."

Fullmetal ran his finger over the razor's edge, somehow avoiding the cut. "Not planning on marrying you like I'm a girl or something. I just know I'll always love you, no matter what happens. You can't plan feelings."

"You're young. You don't understand-"

"No, it's okay. I get it. It's whatever." Fullmetal tugged Roy's robe. "So why don't you gently fuck off while I scrape your face with a sharp object?"

"Don't forget to lather." 

++

This was a very bad idea. He knew it was, years ago, and yet there he was, kissing Hawkeye. Her lips were soft, her hands went on his shoulders (instead of reaching for her gun), and she even let him touch her tongue with his. Some would have said it was a kiss decades in the making; but if those same people knew anything about Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang, they would've told him not to do it. 

"Good?" 

She nodded, but simply stood there, like a soldier awaiting further orders. 

"Not good." Roy pulled back. "Maybe you'd like a drink?"

She pressed her lips together as he opened a wide, lacquered cabinet stocked with select liquors and wines. _The Monster_ , as Havoc had christened it, was a relic of recent history, when the Fürher had entertained foreign and domestic dignitaries. Now that Prime Minister Weimar was the official head of state, Roy was free to slowly drain its contents. 

"Sir?"

"I keep forgetting where we moved those shot glasses to." 

"Fürher?"

"I think they're here..."

"Roy!"

She looked away and pointed at the bottom cabinet. "I put all the glasses there, sir. And I'd prefer vodka."

He nodded. "Duly noted."

Once that was settled they stood at the window sill, held their shot glasses up in a silent salute, then threw their heads back. "Another." She held hers out and he complied as they repeated the process. "It's after five." She didn't have to explain herself to him. Not the vodka, at least. 

"Are you stalling?"

She fingered the glass in her hand. "We don't know what's going to happen next, sir."

"Know what, exactly? The sexual positions? I don't think it's a matter to discuss since those things sort of work themselves out."

 

She shook her head. 

“Not funny?”

"sir, we accomplished what we initially set out to do." She looked him dead in the eye. “But we are not done. Weimar is weak. Amestris is unstable. We-"

He looked away. "You're saying we shouldn’t."

She took the deepest of breaths. "Even if we could..."

"We can't. Fair enough.” He looked the eye. “Did you ever want to?"

“Yes. Does it matter?” She shook her head. “That's hardly the point.”

“I did, too." Did he, really? Yes, he did, when he was much younger. 

“If I didn't pity your loneliness I'd shoot you for lying.” She put the glass on his desK. "I'm forty two, sir. You just kissed me like it was my reward for waiting all these years. But I wasn't waiting for you. I was working with you. That isn't who we are. If we changed that, then who would you be sleeping with?"

"I'm messing it up, huh?” He couldn't even picture her in his bed. Oh, hell. He had no room for her in that big, empty apartment, anyway. He'd filled it with dreams and memories. 

"A little. Nothing that can't be fixed." She poured him a shot. "Besides, we're already married to our careers."

He held the glass up. "And I have a terrible wife.”

"Here, here." 

Vodka's lazy hum buzzed under his skin as he threw himself on the sofa and let his head tip back. When he squinted her hair looked almost golden in the sunset. He smiled and wondered what Edward would say. 

How many kids did Edward have, now? Three? A dozen? A thousand? Hawkeye said the Elrics had relocated to Rush Valley two years ago. They - _they_ \- sent her letters. Edward never wrote to him directly, not once. It was always 'them,' and it was always addressed to _the Mustang Crew_. Roy declined when Hawkeye offered him a look at their ongoing saga of Elric Marital Bliss. He despised his pettiness but he couldn't help it. Edward would always be sacred, golden and forever _his_ \- despite reality. 

"You're right." He closed his eyes and saw golden sunshine in his mind. "Happily-ever-after is not for people like us."

He was drunk by the time the carpool took him to the banal-yet-luxurious apartments he called home, as if he could really have a home, after he moved out of the mansion. He stumbled as the doorman let him in, tripping over the never ending steps to the tenth floor (why didn't the elevator ever work?) and felt like a complete failure as he fucked with the lock for what seemed like hours. 

He threw himself, face up, into his overstuffed leather sofa and laughed. "This is good," he told the ceiling. "This is the way it should be. Stay on duty, Mustang."

"I miss you, you fucking asshole."

Roy knew that voice wasn't really there this time. He was drunk and hallucinating, but he was not insane.

He expected to see an adult when he turned his head: Edward Elric, all grown up, with a beard to the floor and a dozen kids hanging off of him. But he didn't. No, his mind was far too cruel. He saw his Fullmetal, young and beautiful, sitting on his coffee table, with the saddest eyes. 

“Why aren't you here?"

 

“I'm not, stupid. If I left my family, then what kinda guy would you be in love with, huh?”

Roy woke up wincing as sunlight poured into his living room, drilling holes in his skull. The maid snorted when he moaned. "Coffee?"

"Fürher, I have to tell you so many times, right? I am not your wife. You! You go get your coffee!” The rest came out in a massive jumble of Cretan. He didn't speak it, but Roy recognized cursing in any language.

++

The world turned upside down the day Major Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, stormed into Colonel Roy Mustang’s office demanding they start sleeping with each other. 

He was a man who liked to prepare for everything: natural disasters, political chaos, and even low blood sugar. That was why his first lieutenant kept an umbrella, a loaded gun and hard candies on hand at all times. But he had no contingency plans for a hormonal wunderkind with a surprise hard on for his Commanding Officer. He had no idea what to say or do when Fullmetal declared his intentions to bed him. That declaration was one of the strangest moments of Roy Mustang's fairly unusual life. 

"I have dreams about you."

Roy blinked over the paperwork like he was waking up from a nap. "Pardon?" 

At one fell swoop papers slid off his desk and Fullmetal was perched where they used to be, like a bird of prey, ready to attack. "You heard me: I have dreams about you. And yeah, you know what kind they are."

"I'm afraid my crystal ball is at home." He sat back and treated the muddy boots on his two hundred thousand cenz mahogany desk to a rueful click of his tongue. "At the risk of sounding slightly perturbed: _What in the actual hell, Major?_ " 

"Me, plus you, naked. Age of concern is sixteen, I'm close enough and an emancipated minor, so don't even try saying we can't." You'd think the little shit was picking a fight!

Roy got up to retrieve his papers from a fate worse than foot stomping. "Lieutenant Hawkeye will be giving me the morning agenda, soon." He looked over his shoulder.

"I knew you'd stall. That's why I told her I'm giving you an emergency report." He jumped off and cupped his crotch. "Wanna see it?"

Roy went back to picking up papers. "No." The kid was the definition of Highly Irregular. Roy accepted his refusal to wear the uniform painstakingly fitted for his minuscule frame, the technical (and not-so-technical) acts of insubordination, and the general mayhem which seemed to follow Fullmetal like a curse. He was the one who insisted on recruiting an adolescent. He was the one who put him under his command. Fullmetal was his problem. Sometimes Roy felt like kicking himself for putting an adult burden on a kid's shoulders, given these results. 

No, constantly. 

"Come on! I'm fucking hot. Don't tell me you haven't checked me out." 

Hot, as he put it, was subjective. Roy never took the time to assign the specific qualifiers "Fine. I won't tell you I haven't, but I really haven't." He straightened up, walked around the raging bundle of testosterone, and jogged his papers on the edge of his desk, far away from the mud. "Find a girlfriend, Fullmetal. Fumble your way toward ecstasy, and learn about sex with someone your own age." He shouldn't have mentioned anything even remotely sexual. It was slightly, ever so slightly, questionable, and he knew it. But then again, being around someone so Highly Irregular could do that. 

"Fine. Buy me a burger, then."

"It's zero-nine hundred."

"A danish, then. Make it two, three danishes. And lots of coffee." He must've tiptoed because his arms were suddenly banded around Roy's waist. "You're paying." It was not a hug, it was an immobilizing assault. 

"That had better be your belt buckle rubbing against my leg." Roy elbowed him off. "I don't date subordinates and I definitely do not date little boys." 

_Who are you calling so little he could ride an ant in a parade! I'll show you little!_

Roy found himself staring at the ceiling, wheezing and wondering when he was going to be able to breath again. The fact that Fullmetal was sitting directly in his diaphragm wasn't helping. Tiles disappeared behind a mass of blonde hair curtaining a wicked grin. "Can a little shorty do this?" 

There were decisive moments in Roy's life: when his parents died in a train accident, when he screwed up enough courage to knock on Berthold Hawkeye's door. When he enlisted. When he first used flame alchemy. His first combat kill. And then, of course, when Fullmetal touched him for the first time. 

It was like he waking from a dream when Fullmetal impishly grinned, while he leaned back and cupped Roy's balls. “Oh, wow. The shit we are gonna do, Colonel Bastard.” Fuck, if that didn't make Roy hard as a rock. "Danish or sex. You chose."

It was possible to feel light as a feather while being pinned down to the floor. "No dates."

"Then it's sex. But you know what? I changed my mind. Not here: I wanna bed.” If that was true, then why was he rubbing Roy's cock, now? “Don't look so freaked out. It'll be fun. You need to blow off some steam, anyway.”

++

Roy was going to retire after twenty five years of military service at the ripe old age of forty one, in order to campaign for a seat in Parliament. Weimar had given the Republic of Amestris the dubious honor of an economic recession. Industrial jobs, which used to pay living wages, were being shipped off to Ishval, where workers were paid as little as one hundred cenz per diem to perform the same work an Amestrian union worker did for one hundred times that amount. The old ethnic hostility against 'red-eyed religious terrorists' was rearing its ugly head again, and of course Roy felt compelled to step in. After all, as Fürher he no longer had the legal authority to stop this insanity. But if he could get into parliament and push Weimar out of power? Now that was a plan!

"Always on a mission, aye sir?" Havoc swiveled a lollipop stick from one corner of his mouth to the other. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you're a control freak.” He leaned close to Hawkeye and whispered _control freak_ theatrically. 

Roy snatched that paper up and tapped the headlines as he read: "'Nine Dead in Ishvalan Riots.'" Then he tossed it on the desk. "More like fifty seven, according to Colonel Brenda's sources. Men, women and children." He rubbed his eyes. "All lynched for the crime of being Ishvalan." 

"And here we thought democracy meant justice for all." Havoc nudged Hawkeye, who was busily flipping through memoranda after memoranda. "The chief never shoulda gave power to those lousy money politicians."

"I gave it to the people." Roy muttered. 

Havoc sounded like a pig when he snorted. (Damn country bumpkin.) "And then the people gave it to rats. The country was better off when you ran the show." Havoc took the paper from Roy's desk and offered it to Hawkeye, who shook her head without once eyeing the damnable thing. "Yeah, I don't blame 'ya." He got up and tossed it in the trash, then spat in it. Roy half expected him to slam the door as he left. 

"Jean's been one cagey bastard ever since he had that heart attack."

“Sir…” He sat up a little straighter at the sound of his name. “We need to talk.”

“Uh-oh. What's the matter, boss?”

She put down her clipboard, placed a hand on his shoulder and sighed. “This is hard for me to say after all these years.”

“Finally going to admit you have a crush on me, Riza?” He pulled down his glasses and batted his eyelashes. Oh, hell- no reaction. Whatever she was about to say was even more serious than usual. “I'm sorry. Please, continue.”

“Sir, I know you want to be Prime Minister, but you're not going to do it.” She took a deep breath. “I need you here, as a military leader.”

There was something missing. “ _You_ need me here?”

"You stay in this position and I run. Then we work together to ensure peace. It's the only way we can be sure the state doesn't abuse its power and develop a strong, progressive coalition. This is the whole point of our mission, is it not?”

He shook his head. His foolishness never failed him. He should have known. A capable soldier was supposed to take initiative. Yes, what she said made sense - of course it made sense. "I suppose I cannot stop you. Very well. Let's play knighted queen."

"With all due respect, sir? You know I play poker, not chess." She patted his back, then picked up the clipboard. "Aces in their places."

She slipped away as Roy stayed in his office, swiveling his chair to face the setting sun. “What do you think, Sunshine?” Light caressed his face like a ghost until it faded away. 

 

++

They parted ways half a week after the Promised Day. Sometimes Roy relived the events through sounds and the memory of physical touches, which remained like a ghostly residue, to serve as a reminder: love means loss. 

"Come here." Roy had reached for the warm face he couldn't see. “Hi, Sunshine.” 

“Hi.” Fullmetal’s voice was hesitant. “How you holdin’ up, man?” 

 

They sat on a bench under the oak tree at State Memorial Hospital. The breeze was sweet, the birds were singing, and Sunshine was a warm blanket Roy could feel like a caress. 

“I'm good, very good.” He took a deep breath. “Look, Fullmetal, I-” How could he feel any dread when the world was saved? It was so selfish, so petty and small, and yet their lack of contact was a horrifying omen, even after the hell they had faced down. Roy had told himself, like a fool, after Fullmetal destroyed that fucking monster, that somehow, _somehow_...

But what Roy had said put this fool in his place. 

Fullmetal had spoken first, talking about a future and promises. “I was thinking about reenlisting, you know? Maybe going into research or something, and -” Fate had been teasing Roy with dreams of Fullmetal staying. 

“Dr Marco is going to use the Philosopher's Stone on me.”

Roy heard the rustle of leaves and the crunch of gravel under Fullmetal's boot as he stood. “No he's not.”

“If I'm going to lead this nation -”

“No, he’s _not!_ ” Roy was lifted by his hospital shirt and shaken, hard, as Fullmetal hollered. “You're not that man! You're better than that!”

Roy gritted his teeth. “Am I? I'm the man who slaughtered thousands of Ishvalan civilians. Some would say I'm not a good man at all.”

Roy would've fallen to the ground if his hand didn't catch the bench when Fullmetal let him go. “Don't make excuses. Those stones cost human lives.”

“And they're not coming back, whether I use it or not. I will do whatever I must to serve my country and do right by the Ishvalans who are left. So what's your point?”

“Those stones are literally lives! Lives, you bastard! God, and I _loved_ you!” Loved, past tense, not _love_. Roy swallowed that like a bitter pill. “You know what? You make me sick!”

Roy squared his shoulders. “I'm sorry, Sunshine.”

_”Don't you dare call me that again, you selfish piece of shit!”_

“You didn't have a problem with my selfishness in bed, did you?” Roy wished he couldn't even taken that back the instant he said it. 

“Forget me.” It was like a gunshot in his heart. 

Roy sat in a dark world as he listened to Fullmetal’s footsteps fade away. 

++

She was a miracle. She gave him power, she gave him strength, and now she gave him hope. Riza Hawkeye had not just won a seat in parliament, she was now majority leader and a serious contender for PM in the next cycle. Roy beamed as she stood at the podium and shot down the opposition party with revelation after revelation.

"These reports have been verified by two independent sources from our friends Risembool and Ambassador Elric. There has been a conspiracy to control wages in Amestris and suppress Ishval. In short, fellow members, they're think we have forgotten the lessons of our recent history. But I didn't forget. Did you?" 

Loud shouts rang around her. _No! No! Never forget!_

She held up the reports. "Never forget!" She glared over her shoulder and made Prime Minister Weimar - that son of a bitch! - squirm in her sites. Roy had to laugh. The pig didn't have a chance in hell. 

"Pretty amazing, huh?" That voice... Was he hallucinating? Roy half expected he was, and wouldn't have been surprised to see his Sunshine smiling back at him when he turned to bask in that light. 

But it wasn't him. It was a young man with short blond hair, who couldn't have been more than sixteen. He was dressed in a brown suit he'd clearly outgrown. No, Roy didn't recognize the boy, but...

He recognized that smile. 

“Do I know you, son?” 

He shook his head. “Nah. But you know my folks, Fürher Mustang: Edward and Winry Elric.” 

His _son?_ Yes, Roy could see it. He had his father’s golden hair and skin, that same wide smile. And yet he was taller than Edward when he was sixteen, and he had his mother’s blue eyes. “You don't say. How is your father, ah, and your lovely mother?”

“They're good. Ma’s busy with the shop, and Pop is teaching.” Teaching? Roy couldn't imagine Edward having the inclination nor temperament for that. “He said, uh, he owes you a debt.” He pulled an envelope out of his too-small jacket. 

Roy took it with a frown. “Not that I'm aware of.” 

“That's not what Pop said, Führer.” Then he saluted. 

“Highly irregular for a civilian to salute, son.” It didn't stop Roy from returning it. 

“Not for long. See, I was happy when Pop told me to deliver this because I wanted to meet the head of the military for myself before I joined up.”

Charmed, Roy cocked his head. “The Academy, huh?”

“Yes, sir!” The cocksure grin was back. “Pops wasn't impressed when I didn't wanna study Alchemy, instead. He said something like: _Don't let the bastard wear you down, son_.” 

When the kid quoted his father, Roy had to smile. It was as if he heard Edward himself. He held up the envelop. “Send your father my regards.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

He shook his head. “My apologies. I’m an old man and I tend to forget my manners. What is your name, son?”

He beamed, and for a moment Roy saw a tiny ray of sunshine. “Heh. See, my old man must think the world of you: I'm Roy Elric.”

Roy's heart stopped.

Hours later, Roy opened the envelop and found unusually thick, old fashioned parchment which smelled like citrus. Oddly, there were only five words:

_Reading this is a snap._

A riddle, huh? Roy put his head in his hand and laughed. Edward had not been able to practice Alchemy for years, but even that couldn't stop him from being an _Alchemist_.

At Roy's farsightedness would make gauging at close range a bit of a challenge. Even with bifocals, Roy was dealing with dubious odds. But he managed, and - viola! - one snap later the lemon mixture caramelized against the parchment, and the page was filled with what one could describe as the mature version of Fullmetal-chicken-scratches and cross-outs. 

_Hello,_

_You're probably wondering why I sent Roy instead of seeing you, myself? I wanted to say so much and I didn't know where to start. First, I wish things ended differently between is. I wanted to say it for years but I couldn't figure out how to do it without screwing things up, just like I did back at the hospital. You've got no idea how many letters I've written to you over the years. They all ended up in my fireplace. Maybe this one will, too? ~~I love you to this day and probably will until the day I die.~~ _

_You're with me every single day. I see a fire and think of you. Military uniforms and pocket watches, whiskey, ~~sex,~~ the national flag. You name it! It used to piss me off, because I didn't want to remember you at all. And then one day I understood that I couldn't forget because what we shared was a part of me. That was why I convinced Winry to name our firstborn after you. She probably figured out what that was all about, even though she's never brought it up. I wish I could just say but then again I never even told anyone, not even Al. _

_It's not that I'm ashamed. I just don't want anyone else's impressions to influence what we had. We were in our own private world. You once told me I'd regret making it about love. I did for a while, but that didn't last. I'll never regret loving you. I hope you remember me with with, maybe, a little fondness?_

_Be happy.  
-Edward Elric_

++

“So, what will you think of me, years from now?”

Fullmetal had propped himself up on his chest so he could draw lazy circles around Roy's right nipple. “That you're pretty sexy for an old man.” He grinned. “Same as now.”

Roy ran his fingers through Sunshine’s loose blond hair. “Ask me what I'll think of you.”

“What'll you think of me? - even though I know the answer?”

“Years from now, when I'm Fürher, I will declare Edward Elric Ass Day. The entire nation will be required to celebrate the glory that is your delectable derrière.” He smacked said derrière for emphasis. 

“Oh my god! Aren't you even slightly ashamed of being a pervert?” Fullmetal flicked his nose. 

Roy flicked his, right back. “As Fürher, I will abolish shame...”

++

Roy sat in his office, nodding over the minutes of the Parliament meeting, passing his notes to Colonel Fulman (hoping beyond hope the man wouldn't supplement those notes with the usual encyclopedia entries), when he heard the knock.

He had been Führer long enough to recognize those tentative, _please excuse the interruption_ , taps. “Get that, would you, Fulman?” He tossed those damn bifocals on the desk, leaned back in his old swivel chair and prepared a fatherly smile for the meek little mouse who came by to see the old soldier.

Only, this was not a sad little mouse. Roy stood up when he saw the unmistakable sunny hair over Fulman’s shoulder, felt the warmth of the sun when he saw that face and _beamed_ like the old fool he was.

“Hey, you old bastard.”

Somehow their bodies collided and somehow their arms reached one another as somehow, _somehow_ , they were rocking back and forth holding each other. Roy hardly noticed the discrete click of the door as he pulled back and laughed. “You shaved.”

“Yeah.” Edward laughed, too. “Almost thought I forgot how, but yeah.” Round nearly touched the laugh lines on his face. “Pretty old, huh?” He punched his arm. “Still not as old as you!”

“Thirty… seven?”

Edward shrugged. “Prime of my life, unlike some old timers.”

“Ouch.” Roy motioned toward _The Monster_. “Care for a whiskey?”

“Hey,” Edward took that hand and held it in both of his. “Thank you for looking out for our son.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

Edward’s stare was penetrating. “The books? The ‘scholarship?’ Hell, even the mess hall fees? I know that was you, Mustang.” Then he saw it- that quiver in his smile. 

“More effective than writing you back.” Roy’s voice was hoarse. “Chalk it up to Equivalent Exchange.”

“Yeah.” He was staring at their clasped hands, shaking his head as they stood there. _“I never stopped… you know.”_ His voice shook. 

”Me neither, Sunshine.”

Edward looked up, Roy and finally felt as if he had found where he belonged, again. “Hell…” He let go and rubbed his nose. “What’s a man gotta do to get that whiskey, you old bastard?”

“Coming up.” 

His hands shook as he poured out two shots, and he nearly spilled the whole damn bottle as they sat at Grumman’s old game table. 

“I used to imagine sneaking up here on a train.” Edward rubbed the glass against his lower lip as he stared at the open chess board. “I would've booked a room at your aunt’s brothel and sent you a note.” He smiled slowly, slyly, knowingly. “You would've shown up in your uniform with a box of chocolates.”

Roy ran his hands through his salt and pepper hair. “I would have done it, too.”

“I know.” He closed his eyes. “That was what made it so hard to stay away.” 

“But your family.”

“Love isn't measured in what you take. It's what you give.” His eyes remained closed. “I would've been taking from them,” his eyes opened, “and from you.”

Roy threw back his drink. Edward poured him another one. “You wouldn't have been the boy I loved if we did.” 

“And you wouldn't have been the man I loved if you let me.” Roy watched Edward finish his drink and reciprocated, pouring out a generous portion. “Aren't you afraid I'll say yes, right now?”

Edward picked it up and held it to the light, then finished it off and slammed the glass back down, grinning that beautiful shit eating grin. “Are you afraid I'll ask?”

“Terribly.” He finished his and poured them both another round. 

They clinked their shot glasses and watched the other take his shot and smiled, together, after they swallowed more down. 

“Then I won't ask.”

Roy put his head in his hands and laughed. “You'll be the death of me, Sunshine.”

“Not at all! We’re gonna talk about old times an’swap war stories an’argue til we’re done with this damn bottle. Maybe you'll even try to beat me at chess, which you won't, and during all that time I'm gonna be thinking about that plan o’mine.”

“You sure?” They stared at each other's mouths for the longest time, or maybe just a moment, until Roy shook his head and took two pieces in his hands. “Choose your color.”

Edward touched the right hand. 

“White. You go first.”

“Prepare to lose, y’old bastard.”

“I prepare for everything but that.”

“Okay, s’which way do the stubby pieces in front go?”

“Seriously, Fullmetal?”

“Yeah, seriously, _Colonel Shit!”_

They laughed all night.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so, so much for reading! I appreciate you very much. Please let me know if you see any typos or other mistakes. 
> 
> Thanks, again!  
> -Liz


End file.
